Personal Idea: Star Trek - Next, Next Gen

I have been a Star Trek fan from day one. I remember when it first came out (yes, I’m an old fart). And the cartoons when they came out.

So I was there, with all the Star Trek geeks when Next Generation. It had a slow start. I found the first season inconsistent and they did not know what to do with some of the characters. But when it hit is stride, there were a few really good seasons. But the show lost stream when many of the writers went to Deep Space 9 (DS9).

I loved DS9 from the onset. The characters were well-drawn out and I loved the look and feel of the show. But after a few seasons, they got back into flying around space and brought in, once again, almost invincible bad guys. But the last season, especially the last eight episodes were masterpieces.

Then came Star Trek Voyager. Talk about a wet fart with chunks. Let’s have some people lost zillion of light years away from home and every second or third episode find something that might get them home. Not!

Finally, there was Enterprise. Personally, I like the first three seasons, especially the third. In that season, the writers could be totally inventive without worrying about Star Trek canon. But the fourth season lost it. They tried to throw in the kitchen sink and link the show to the previous shows. It could have been a good series.

So why am I babbling about this? Well, I have an idea for the next Star Trek series. And my idea tried to take the strengths of some of the previous shows and put it into one.

The new, untitled series, would have one plot thread focusing on adventure and exploration which Star Trek is good at. And then there would be politics and intrigue as another plot thread, which DS9 showed could be done. And finally, the third thread would be something new. A on-going mystery that slowly unravels are the seasons go by.

The centre point would be a Deep Space station on the edge of the Beta quadrant, orbiting a verdant planet. The station would be the main focus for the politics and intrigue. The head, or ‘governor’ is corrupt and someone from Starfleet has been sent to clean up the mess.

With the station there would be a Galaxy class or whatever class we are at now ship. They would be going into the Beta quadrant to explore, bring back people of trade negotiations, protect the station, etc. etc. Here we get exploration and phasers and new species.

The mystery is the verdant planet. The planet is a treasure trove of animals and plants. Yet humans can only be on the surface for 30 days or so before they become violently ill. And just before the series starts, they have discovered an ancient set of ruins of an advanced civilization from thousands of years ago.

As a backdrop, the Federation is falling apart. After all the stuff, like the Dominion, Borg, wars, etc. etc., the Federation is starting to fray. And there is an internal threat, which I bring back from one Next Gen stopped to explore. Because of that, there are pockets of freedom fighters, terrorists, and old wounds being opened.

The main character would be a fresh-faced graduate from the Academy on his first assignment. He gets pulled into the politics of the station and is used in some of the stories on the planet and in the Beta quadrant.

Even though he is the focus, he is not the main character. This would be an ensemble cast where not one character is primary.

With this idea, there would be three story arcs going on. Sometime they would intersect while other times they wouldn’t. And the seasons would not end with a cliff hanger, that is for sure.
And being a science fiction writer, I would put in things all of the Star Trek series seemed to miss. The main transportation to the planet’s surface would be through stalks or space elevators. One plot line would revolved around a ringworld or orbital. And these are not new ideas. The ringworld dates back to the 1970’s.

The other key thing would be: no particle of the week. One thing that hurt Star Trek was when they wrote themselves into a corner, a particle would mysteriously pop up and save the day.
So that is the basic idea. It needs a lot fleshing out but I believe this idea would give most of the Trek fans a little of everything and a new direction for Star Trek to go in. Over the next while, as I start put things on paper, I’ll give updates. And feedback would be appreciated.

Of course there is the obvious question: don’t I have enough to do with Tangled Threads? Yup. But I think focusing a little bit on science fiction again will keep me fresh when I return to fantasy of Tangled Threads.